Our Landlord sent us this message last night, we moved out over a week ago and were told everything was fine at that point. None too impressed guys..I made no fuss or deduvtions for lack of cleaning but just gone to make up small room double bed and just realised you turned memory phone matress which covered in 'stains' ! New mattress will be certainly to tune of 150...I trust you will send this promptly! Rosie Implying that I flipped the mattress deliberately to hide "stains" (a glass of wine spilt during a tough essay time). This was not done, I left it on its side when we left the flat. can anyone advise on how we should proceed and where we stand? Thanks in advance

Hi, I placed a part payment on a used car recently and am now unable to complete the transaction and would like my part payment back. I have asked the dealer directly and they refused and now need advice on how to proceed. When placing the part payment I was not made aware verbally or in writing that it was non refundable. I was given an order form where I filled in my personal details at the top and car details on the right and the salesman signed - but I did not sign. There were also no terms and conditions on this form or on the website stating deposits or part payments are non refundable. How can I get this back? Thanks

Hi I'm new on the forum. I'm looking for some advice. Last month I vacated a property that I had been letting through a letting agent / estate agent for over three years. An outgoing inspection was done and the report stated that the property was in overall good condition. I had maintained it and had paid for it to be re plastered and redecorate with the landlords permission. However, several days after the report I received a telephone call from the letting agent. They told me that the landlord had decided to keep all of the deposit. They didn't give a reason, just said he wasn't happy with the property. I wasn't given any further advice from the agent. My sister did some research on the internet and found that I should have been given some paperwork about a tenancy deposit scheme when the tenancy began. I didn't receive this and neither did my mother who paid the deposit. I contacted the letting agents and was told they would look into it. Several hours later I received call to say the landlord had changed his mind and would now refund my full deposit, that the property was in good condition and there were no issues. I was shocked. I gave them my mothers bank details. My sister urged me to contact them again in regard to the tenancy scheme because she thought they had broken the law and could be fined. When I did so the agents suggested that I didn't need the details because I was getting refunded. My sister urged me to contact them again and demand the details, which I did. They told me they would deliver them in a few days. They didn't do so. When I contacted them again they admitted that due to an administrative error they had not protected the deposit. Sorry. Was there anything else? I asked for the landlords details because I wanted to make sure that he had originally told them to keep my deposit. However, they haven't provided the details despite me continually asking. And furthermore they still haven't returned my mothers deposit. I have started a complaints process with them to get the deposit back but they are really dragging their heels. Sorry, to get to the point, do I need to go through this complaints process with them before I can go to court to try and get the deposit returned? And if they won't release the landlord's details can I put the agents name on the court form? Thanks for any advice

Hi, myself and my partner just put a deposit down on an apartment which isn't available until the 7th of July. The letting agent has just sent us through the holding deposit T&C which states the following.. " Should the applicant withdraw the application or fail their referencing, which is at the landlords discretion and in this event be unable to provide a guarantor suitable to the landlord, the deposit will not be returned" Is this common practice? Surely that's a HUGE gamble with money?? I don't mind losing the fees but the entire deposit as well? Shouldn't they usually take this AFTER the checks have been carried out? Any help would be much appreciated before I sign these forms! Many thanks!

Paid £300 deposit for a patio window in November 15 and promised delivery in 2 weeks but turned out to be 2 months owing to a backlog of orders and the Xmas period. Cancelled immediately I was notified of the date which was unacceptable. No T & c. were left when deposit was paid but were forwarded later when I cancelled. They came with a letter promising a refund of the deposit as a goodwill gesture minus £71.40 admin charges. This was confirmed 5 times by text. However, they have gone back on their word and will not answer any correspondence or calls. I want to take it to the small claims court, am I within my righs.

Hello, War and piece - if you can't be bothered to read see the last two paragraphs. In June 2015 I bought a brand new Seat Ibiza from a Seat Dealer on PCP Finance (Dealer supplied Finance through VWFS). The main reason - I've always had older cars but I was fed up of the maintenance requirements and the time I had to take out for preventative repairs that older cars require. A new car was going to cost me more money, short term and long term; but the privilege of a new, reliable and care free vehicle outweighed any financial impact. This was clearly outlined to the salesman. Very early on in ownership I started experiencing issues with the car, please find a rough timeline below: 600 miles - Developed a light knocking sound 811 miles - x2 new front droplinks fitted under warranty. 1200 miles - Car started knocking again and suspension became very vocal. 1254 miles - x2 new steering arms fitted under warranty. On the drive home from having the steering arms replaced, The car felt 'off'. The steering wasn't as precise and seemed to tram line depending on the road surface and condition, the knocking had not been fixed. I made a phone call to the dealers expressing my concerns where I was advised to keep driving as the new steering arms will loosen up. 1600 miles - The symptoms were still the same and knocking remained. I rebooked the car in and asked for an inspection and alignment check. 1949 miles - Car was returned to the dealer and A Seat Master Tech test drove/inspected and found no issues, I was assured tracking had been fixed when the steering arms were replaced and had been double checked this time. Car only had a 1.6 mile test drive! 1983 miles - Car went to a local independent, I explained my issues and requested an inspection/second opinion only. Within 5 minutes on a Hunter alignment machine it was noted the front wheels were toe out. The car was not rectified (for the avoidance of doubt the car was untouched mechanically) and I have a print out as evidence of the issue. I was also advised that the suspension top mounts should be checked and is a known TPI on Seat Ibiza's. A detailed complaint was sent to the Dealer Complaint Manager via e-mail; stating I am ready to reject the car if they can't fix it. I was called by the service team asking to bring the car back in 2154 miles - The car was returned to the dealer where I was informed the Dealer does not have tracking equipment so the car was sent to an independent for tracking to be rectified. The car came back with a print out and the rear of the car was out of spec and was left out of spec. No other work was done by the dealer Although the cars steering feels better, the car still overreacts to road surface and has very vocal suspension. A further complaint was put into the Dealer via a reply to a customer satisfaction generic e-mail - I was advised the dealer principle would be in touch No response from the Dealer so I chased my complaint again I spoke to the Dealer Principle via phone call where I advised I have lost confidence in the car, in the dealer being able to rectify the issues and that I want to reject the car. We agreed the best option for all parties involved was to negotiate an amicable solution and get myself out of my current car and into an equivalent replacement - We discussed an equivalent spec Leon FR due to my lost faith in the Seat Ibiza. The Dealer Principle handed over to The Sales Manager and advised I'll receive a phone call with options. I received a phone call from Sales Manager stating he needed to get my Settlement Figure from VWFS before we can continue negotiations and to expect a phone call the following day. I called VWFS myself and obtained a settlement figure of £12,247.79 I failed to receive a phone call the followed day, so I chased The Sales Manager called me the next day and advised he values my car at £9,500 and as a result there is too much negative equity to begin negotiations and there was nothing more the Dealer can do. I advised I'll have to take this further with Seat UK and the Finance Company. Put in a complaint to VWFS and Seat HQ Phone then rang off the hook from the Dealer apologising and offered me deal where they took my current car, settled the finance then started a new agreement on a Leon FR. They planned on using my original £2,000 deposit on the Leon, however the Leon is an unsold but brand new MY15 model (current is MY16) Leon FR - subtle tech changes. I asked for 24 hours to think and was advised sales manager was off the following day but he would hand over to business manager Following day I accept the offer only to be told by the business manager I now need to put in another £2,000 deposit! Long story short - Brand new Seat on PCP finance, started with steering and suspension issues from 6 weeks / 600 miles. Dealers had the car back 4 times and the issue is still apparent. I'm negotiating with the dealer to get me out of this car and into another, but the offer the dealer has given me works out £2,112.81 more expensive, over a longer term for an older MY spec car than if I were to get my £2,000 Deposit back and go into a competitor dealer with a new order. I'd accept the deal without the extra £2,000 deposit and compromise by having the older MY car. But at this stage I feel I just want out. I want to hand the car back, cancel the finance and get my £2,000 deposit back to go elsewhere - I'm not interested in compensation or costs to date, just a clean slate. Help! What do I do and where do I go from here?

Hello, Sorry for the long wordy post. I recently paid a £500 deposit and signed a new vehicle hire contract for a Mini with Chilli Pack from Halliwell Jones. 3 days later they contacted me via phone to say that Mini had increased the price of the Chilli Pack and it's now roughly £1000 more expensive (this wasn't advertised on the Mini website). The sales rep said that there was nothing that they could do apart from try to find another car that's already been built with the old chilli pack. They managed to find one that had everything I wanted but was more expensive because it had heated seats. After some hesitation I agreed to this car but called back about 20 mins later to say that i was unsure about what to do. I tried to negotiate a better deal but they wouldn't budge and made out that I had already had as much discount as I was going to get etc. and i said that i needed to think about it. By this time they had already bought this car from another dealership. I told them over the phone that i was going to try and get a better deal from another dealer because i wasn't happy with it at all and that evening that's what I did. When I then asked Halliwell Jones for my deposit back they have refused on the grounds that i agreed to order the second car however, according to their terms and conditions the original agreement was cancelled when they could not fulfil it and the second agreement is classed as a distance selling one and because of this I have the right to cancel within 14 days and don't have to give a reason. Am I in the right here? Any help you can give will be very much appreciated.

Hello all, I am trying to get help with an issue surrounding my security deposit. I'll try to make this as brief as I can: I think that my former agency may have failed to protect my deposit properly, but I'm not sure: When I first moved to Nottingham I rented a property under one landlord. A month later I moved to a different property, with the same agency, but under a different landlord. The agency did not bother to re-submit a new deposit for this property. I spoke to the DPS and, according to them, "when a tenant leaves a property, the agent/landlord will need to release the whole deposit and then re-submit the deposit to us under the new address" The agency didn't follow the DPS's guidelines regarding this. The landlord of property 2 is claiming £160.00 of a deposit that was not paid to cover her property. I'm pretty sure she can't do that, but I need some form of legal advice to be certain. I tried contacting a solicitor but I just can't afford their fees. Nor do I qualify for legal aid, so I'm a bit stuck. I have contacted Notts housing advice but have yet to hear back. I would be hugely grateful for any advice relating to this, or any leads on affordable legal advice. Thank you

My father recently passed away, he had a will and deeds to the house stored in one of two safety deposit boxes at NatWest Bank. I made an appointment to view the contents, when I arrived the bank told me they didn't have the safety deposit boxes and I needed to go to another branch, and gave me the address. I soon realised the branch no longer existed. So I went back to the original branch, who gave me another address. I finally got both boxes, but realised one wasn't my fathers. It belonged to someone else (actually turned out be his brothers). After speaking to NatWest, they said there had been a mistake. There was actually only one deposit box in my fathers name. I know this is untrue as he specifically told me there was a will and deeds to the house in a box at NatWest. The first box has some other unrelated paperwork. What can I do? I have no proof of the contents. The only evidence I have of the existance of the second box is history of two payments of £25 a year.

Hi all, We moved out of our house in Jan and have received our full deposit back. Our ex-landlord is now asking for £60 due to damages. Has she got the right to ask for this? She said she should have taken it out of the deposit...is it not just tough that she didn't?! Thanks in advance!

I recently moved out of a shared flat and the lettings agent sent through a dilapidation report detailing any damage to the property, missing items etc. and the deductions from our deposit that would be made as a result. About half of their claims were reasonable, but about half weren't so we disputed what we felt we needed to. We asked for a detailed breakdown of the costs and evidence of the damage (costs had been lumped by room rather than by each item). In response they asked for a counter offer, said a breakdown of costs was not possible, and made reference to 'expensive work' that would need to come out of the deposit but that was not mentioned in the original report. At this point it felt like they were trying to intimidate us into accepting the original offer. We sent a counter offer and they said they would pass it to the landlord. We did not receive a response to the counter offer, but rather a list of costs for additional work done to the flat far exceeding our deposit (painting, carpet replacements, things like that) that had not been outlined as necessary in the original report. They made no mention of the original report, nor our counter offer, but said a compensatory charge amounting to our full deposit would be required. Their behaviour has been odd and has seemed like the longer the dispute has gone on the more they are trying to charge us. I get the feeling they are trying to intimidate us to forking over the whole deposit but I don't want to gamble that, call their bluff, and wind up owing them much more. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Hi there, I'm having some problems to get the balance of my deposit back, this is £290. I have sent 3 emails to my former landlord and he said that I'm his lodger, I don't have any right and they are not willing to give me anything back. The problem is I'm not his lodger, he didn't live in the property. The landlord is a business of 2 Spanish guys (agency) taking advantage of other foreigners in London. They rent properties through letting agencies and they sublet every inch in the house to people. We were living in London 8 people in a house with one bathroom. As far as I know the owner of the house doesn't know what is happening in her house, but my landlord doesn't want to give me her details nor the letting agency details neither. The agency who rented me the house keeps partly the deposits of other tenants saying that the walls need to be repainted or things like that. My former flatmates had the same problem as me. In my case, they are charging me for a mould which grew in the bedroom due poor insulation, for the cleaning of that mould and for the curtains (which are dirty because of the mould and they were so high I couldn't remove them to wash them up). They are charging me for the walls (were dirty before I moved there, but they didn't do a check-out to the previous tenant and they are charging me for it) and for one night I did not sleep there. This agency are making fraudulent contracts. My contract says "Licence to occupy" and it says "This agreement is not intended to confer exclusive possession upon the licensee, nor it is intended to create the relationship of landlord and tenant between the parties. The Licensee shall not be entitled to an assured tenancy or a statutory periodic tenancy under the Housing Act 1988 or to any other statutory secure of tenure now or upon the determination of the Licence. The Licensee accepts that this Licence does not confer any statutory protection and/or rights that would otherwise be applicable to an assured tenancy or a statutory periodic tenancy under the Housing Act 1988". I contacted Shelter and they said that the agreement is not legal as I was a tenant, not a lodger, as the landlord is an agency and they do not share the property with us. A legal advisor in Shelter told me that I can go to court and make a claim because the agency didn't protect my deposit despite the agreement says. Does anybody know what can I do in this case? This agency does not want to talk to me nor to reply my emails. They took my money unfairly and they are doing the same to other foreigners as people leave the property and they do not know how to claim their money back. So they keep doing the same over and over again. They are taking advantage mainly of Spaniards who come to the UK without knowing how the system works. Is there any way I can report them? If so, where? I don't mind the money, but I want to stop them to do the same to other people. Many thanks.

Hi When my Dad's boiler broke, he called a company from the phone book and the engineer they sent told him he needed a complete replacement of the boiler and quoted him £2600. He charged him £1000 deposit and said he'd be back the next morning to replace the boiler. The same evening, we found another gas fitter who came over that evening and found the problem was with one part and replaced it and serviced the boiler for £370 in total. So the original engineer mislead my father into believing the boiler needed replacing and he didn't do any work. I'm not sure what the best approach is to get the deposit back from the original engineer. The Consumer Contract Regulations stated there should be a 14 day cooling off period where services can be cancelled. There's a template letter for this over on the which website. There is also the The Consumer Protection Regulations which gives consumers 90 days to "unwind" a contract and claim the money back. This seems to be the better option as it is specific to traders misleading their customers. Does anyone have experience of claiming back from traders using this method? Is there a template to use for this? Many thanks

Hi, What do you think I should do? I ordered Business Fibre 152mb broadband in January 2015 Virgin required a £230 deposit which I paid. It is now a year later, hundreds of emails and hours of calls and 6 missed apointments and we seem no closer to an actual installation. Costs initially escalated from £60 for the install to a couple of hundred, and 2 months in I opted for a government Connection Voucher to cover it. Since then they have continued to rise and I've continued to agree to them as they are still less than the grant. Highlights include: a 3 month wait while Virgin was emailing the wrong email address to get the installation started being asked to pay £3895 excess costs which turned out to be a basic algebra error resulting from adding the £3000 connection voucher grant and actual £895 costs together waiting for contractors to not show up to do work on 6 different weekends I made a formal complaint in October and have a reference for it, but all the complaints department do is chase their Manilla call centre to give me an update, which typically doesn't contain any information. It has been a very frustrating year and the practical and financial impact on my business is huge. There is also no sign this is going to end with Virgin actually getting round to the installation... I've thought about complaining to CISAS, which is the ombudsman Virgin Media seem to be linked to, what should i be asking them for? Is there anything else I could do?

I private rented from Oct 2014 to July 2015 & landlord got £243 of deposit after using Deposit Protection Service & adjudication. (Email sent to me Dec 2015) This so wrong, it is for gardening and when I moved in the landlord (couple) said Mr. Landlord was going to do one more mow and then after a week or two I was told a man was booked to come and cut the hedges. He never came round. On day I went to sign assured shorthold tenancy agreement the landlady seemed to have changed her mind about me even though they chose me out of people they chose to show the house. I said I was not happy about a clause in the agreement & she said that I could stop now and not go ahead. I was taking tenancy from this date and had given notice on previous tenancy. They did not give me a written inventory and took the tenancy agreement away so I had to ask for a copy later. There were a few things that happened that they handled in a non-professional manner and I gave notice as soon as I could. The amount they got from adjudicator was for gardening. It was very rainy leading up to me leaving also I was busy organising move. I did a first strim of the garden which is very large and had already cut some of the hedge before. When the landlords came there at end of tenancy I was strimming still doing a second go but had not finished. They would not let me stay to finish or come back to finish even though they said people were coming to look at the property (in 4-5 days). It was July and I mentioned the nesting birds I had seen. The landlords claimed to have both spent hours and hours totalling £243 cutting 2 hedges and doing grass. In effect I've paid them to do their own garden. The Deposit Protection Scheme wrote to me from 9 different email addresses! A lot of the time from their do_not_reply email so I was not sure which email to reply to them on. I found their website hard to see, written in light grey and small writing. I was not clear what was happening as the process went along and if they had received all my evidence which was done by email. Please can someone tell me who to appeal to. I have written to the DPS saying I want to complain and can they send me a copy of their complaint procedure and they have replied saying they will reply to complaint and if not resolved will send me full policy. Am I able to take landlord or DPS or both the a Small Claims Court? I used one years ago but don't know if they operate in a similar way now. What about the Financial Conduct Authority? An ombudsman? Thank you for reading.

Hello there, Im reaching out for a little bit of advice. We are going back a little bit, January 2013 to be precise when myself and my partner moved into a small property in Cornwall. We paid a £500 deposit to the landlord who confirmed that the deposit would be refunded on completion of the inspection/hand over of keys etc. Now being fairly young and nieve we weren’t aware of the DPS and just thought that the deposit was managed by the landlord and was up to them to do what they would like, that was until he refused to return our deposit. At the time we did some digging and soon found out about the DPS and that our deposit should have been helpd in a DPS within 30 days, something that they did not do – I had checked with all of the relevant deposit schemes all of whom had no information of a deposit for the property we were renting. As im sure you can appreciate, being young and understanding the legal jargon behind the DPS and being faced with court, we decided that we should just potentially leave it and move on. That said the way we were treated by the landlord has always stuck with us and we feel it’s only right to persue matters now that we are a little more clued up. The agreed duration of our tenancy was 3 months however no contract was provided or signed although we do have email traces where the landlord agrees to our conditions, and have full proof of payment of the deposit. Upon vacating there was further correspondence by email where we asked the landlord for our deposit back but then refused, stipulating that that property was left dirty (something which we dispute) and that was cause along with excessive internet charges (£80) which we were never informed of at the beginning of our tenancy. In short, would I be right in saying that the landlord by LAW regardless of how the property was left, or the duration of our tenancy, should have still placed the deposit in a DPS and that we should in-fact continue to persue matters and refund of our deposit? TIA

I viewed a flat yesterday morning for a rental. I made a payment of 350 pound and was told the property would be taken off of the market when I make an offer. I was also told the money would be refundable if the landlord does not accept my offer. At the end of the day I made an offer of 340pw. The landlord refused and counter offered 350pw. I declined that and the agent suggested 345pw as a compromise. I told him to see what the landlord said, but had yet to discuss with my brother, who i was renting with. Having discussed with my brother, who was unsure about 340pw to begin with, I called the agent and told them my brother was not happy with 340 and we wanted a refund. By this point, the landlord had not confirmed whether he would accept 345pw as he had to speak to his partner as well. So all in all, the offer was only live for a matter of a few hours, it wasn't confirmed and since I made the deposit, I know the agency still had the advert live and had made at least one viewing, directly after mine so it wasn't really taken off the market at all. However, the agency are trying to retain the full 350 pound as compensation for the landlord. I thought the deposit was to cover reasonable costs incurred? It's not like it was off the market for a week. And besides, there had been no agreed and confirmed offer. Do you have any advice to get at least part of the money back or is there no real hope in your opinion? many thanks.

My live-out landlady told me today that my deposit was exempt from needing to be registered under a tenancy deposit scheme as I have a licensed tenancy. Is she right? Thanks Jeff

This is a continuation to the thread that was previously closed entitled Letting Agent not pretected tenants deposits (M&W). We were wondering if there are people out there who are still owed money by Lucy Sly and Jon Clements? We are a landlord and at this time, they are not returning the entire deposit to our tenant and several months rent has not being passed to us therefore they owe us over £7000. We have spoken to the police, action fraud and have advised lawyers. Are there landlords in similar situations? We are going to visit Jon's Office in St. Leonards next week. Has anyone been there?

We had a quote for some wedding decor at a wedding by an events organiser. A formal quote of £2,000 was agreed and this was emailed to us. We agreed to this and sent a £300 non-refundable deposit by bank transfer. The organiser then decided to raise the agreed price to £3,000. We then requested that we weren't going ahead any more as the agreement had been broken. Initially the contact agreed to refund the deposit but is now refusing. We have made alternative arrangements and our argument is simple. She broke the original agreement by demanding a higher price after we had paid the deposit. She then agreed to refund the deposit. The agreement had ended. She is now saying that the agreement is still in place and she can either deliver what we want for £2,000 or not go ahead but the deposit is non-refundable. We say that the deposit is only non-refundable if we had broken the agreement. We are not using her as we have made alternative arrangements. All of these discussions are on text messages. I now want to send a formal letter before court action demanding that the deposit is refunded as our agreement ended when she raised the price after we paid it and later agreed to refund the deposit. One thing I'm not sure about is who I would claim against in the small claims court if it went that far. The events organisation isn't a company. Can we still issue the claim against the organisation or will I have to sue the individual we are dealing with (the payment was made to an account in her name)? If we have to target the individual can we use the business address as we obviously don't know her personal address?

Hi Wonder if anybody could give advice. In 2013 purchased a car on conditional sale agreement. I returned the car recently under the conditions of the agreement I was due to pay half the value of the credit agreement. (In my case as I returned it earlier I need to pay the difference between what I had already paid and half the value) However, I do not agree with the figure given by the finance company. When looking at the details of the credit agreement further the deposit I paid and the value of my trade-in have not been deducted from the financed amount but instead have been added to it. Effectively I am paying my own deposit and trade-in value again but this time with interest! Can anybody advise me where I stand with this? Many Thanks

My partner has a problem with a tenant. The tenant was taken to Court because of non payment of rent for many months and left just before the bailiffs were due. As the tenant owes something like £6550 in rent plus Court fees and legal fees it would seem equitable that their deposit is used to offset their debt. However the TDS service doesn't seem to look at things this way. I understand that the deposit was originally paid in by the tenant but they surely have foregone any claim to it now since the debt is so large and the £2000 deposit would go some way to reduce the debt. My partner is not chasing for the balance but would be enormously p***ed off should the deposit be repaid to the tenant. The TDS appear to be Judge and jury stating that their decision is final and non contestable. No decision has been made by them so far but reading what other landlords have said, it is by no means certain that the deposit will be used to offset the debt. Can anyone offer any advice as to the best way to deal with the TDS please.

Hi Me and my boyfried went into Mercedes last Friday, after spending almost 3 hours there we found a car (used 2 years old) we loved so we paid our order deposit of £500.00. We then left the garage expecting a phone call in a couple of days to go in and sign the finance papers and confirm when we can expect to pick up our new car as it would have to be delivered from one of their other garages. Later on the Friday we got a phone call to say that someone else was going to view the car on the Sunday who then bought the car. Mercedes now cannot find a car the same as the one we put our deposit on. I thought that the car was ours and that we entered into a legally binding contract when they took our £500.00 deposit as our order deposit. Can anyone else advise please?

If I place a desposit with the dealership for a new caravan which is scheduled for delviery in March 2016 and then for whatever reason change my mind within the next month, am I entitled to a full refund regardless of why I cancelled?

Hi guys, I'm sure these threads come up all the time so I'm sorry if you have to answer again! I have recently moved out from a rented property and after leaving the landlord is withholding the entire deposit. They didn't notify me of this and it was pure luck that I decided to log in to the dps website to see the dispute. I attempted to contact the letting agency but they wouldn't speak to me and didn't call me back. The dispute has now gone to the ADR stage and I wondering what is the best way to tackle this and strongest way to provide my evidence? In a nutshell the Landlord is claiming for one count of Damage, one count of cleaning and one count of unauthorised painting. I really would appreciate any guidance anyone could give. Regards